Valve reveals L4D2 Versus changes

By Robert Purchese Published 25 January, 2010

Infected bots in, auto-spawn out.

Valve's working on a couple of tweaks to the Versus side of Left 4 Dead 2.

The first, AI bots for the infected, should even up the sides a bit.

Removal of auto-spawn from Versus finales is the second, and sounds to have been brayed for by the fans.

This will be monitored closely, however, so that Valve doesn't upset the survival rate of each scenario too much.

There's no date attached to these tweaks, but we're told they're being done to both PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

Meanwhile, Valve continues work on Left 4 Dead 2's first proper DLC add-on, The Passing. This is set in rural Georgia and brings the game's four survivors, plus the quartet from L4D1, together for the first time.

There will be a new co-op campaign as well as fresh Survival, Scavenge and Versus arenas. There will also be a new gun, melee weapon and infected type.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • StooMonster #1 2 years ago

    My team of L4D2 buddies isn't large enough for 'Versus' games, so this is a fantastic development. Looking forward to it.

  • NoKamiFujiwara #2 2 years ago

    A fantastic development indeed! Outside of LAN parties, I usually play L4D2 with random people and early quitters are the norm instead of an exception. Not that I would blame them too much, because nothing is more frustrating than vast skill level differences between teams, and in Left 4 Dead this becomes perhaps more pronounced than in any other shooter.

    Yesterday I felt like I had stumbled upon a very rare and shiny pearl on an endless thrash-littered beach when I joined a team with three random Yankees and we proceeded to pwn like ten Scavenge matches in a row ;D

  • Caimbeul #3 2 years ago

    bots bots bots we need bots.

  • sneetch #4 2 years ago

    @MrMarc
    I hope the Infected bots are as efficient as the Survivors...

    What baffles me though, is that in single player campaigns, your AI teammates are useless!
    However in Versus when you've got AI in the survivors, they're absolutely brutal, dead on accurate and fully aware of the infected's whereabouts!

    The survivor bots are a bit dim but their aimbotting makes them a real nuisance. I love it when I have someone pinned as a hunter and I can see the bot slowly running towards me while facing the wrong way. :)

    I doubt the new infected bots will be all that great as they'll probably just spawn and get instakilled a lot, but hopefully they'll be good for harassment and it makes up the numbers, currently if you have 4 real survivors and 3 infected it's an enormous disadvantage, (if nothing else incapacitating all four survivors at once is damn near impossible).

    I hope this is done right, I still think Versus needs a sense of balance from the infected side of things.

    The lack of infected ladders, spawn points and long spawn timers are the biggest problems I have. The survivors just legging it makes it hard to get any effective attacks off, more and larger hordes should spawn when the survivors just book it, IMO.

    Looking forward to the new campaign but I'd really like to see Francis, Bill and Ellis in a campaign, anyone could be the fourth, don't care who (let's say Rochelle).

  • geeza2020 #5 2 years ago

    you left out Lewis? You heathen!!!

  • kangarootoo #6 2 years ago

    "Removal of auto-spawn from Versus finales is the second, and sounds to have been brayed for by the fans."

    I think that sentence has been infected.

  • Shinetop #7 2 years ago

    Reveal Episode 3, dammit.

  • evilrobot #8 2 years ago

    How about when the whole other team backs out and you still don't get the win? what about that? and how about a timer for each sides run for when eveybody makes it, to see who gets the most points? rather see these than bots, nick will still see you from ten miles away and pop you, but i highly doubt the infected bots are going to be as ruthless. We shall see.

  • DAN.E.B #9 2 years ago

    i think they should have an option to not allow split screeners and no mic,ers
    the amount of games ruined by these people are countless it puts me off playing it at all

  • BlitzwingHaz #10 2 years ago

    Why no split screeners?
    A guy at my work was telling that some peope have a dodgy patch thing that lets you see the outlines of the infected players while you're a survivor. Game breaker if its true.
    What puts me off versus/scavenge is that I normally get myself killed through being shit. No patch'll fix that. :D

  • ReaperOscuro #11 2 years ago

    Ditto Shinetop -this is great news, but hey Valve, heres a great idea too: WHY DON'T YOU FINISH ALREADY STARTED GAME SERIES BEFORE MOVING ONTO SOMETHING ELSE?!?

    Hey, just a thought.
    Edited by 1 at 25/01/10 @ 20:48

  • NoKamiFujiwara #12 2 years ago

    @ReaperOscuro:

    Well, obviously they wanted to do something else for a change. Plus, in my humble opinion, Half-Life is, along with Halo, one of the most overrated gaming franchises in history. Halo excels in AI, Half-Life in storytelling but that's it. And people must be retarded if they think having a mute protagonist makes you feel more immersed in the game world.

    EDIT: Spelling, hopefully. Kinda sleepy :p
    Edited by 1 at 25/01/10 @ 23:01

  • Dr.Mott #13 2 years ago

    @ NoKamiFujiwara

    Regardless of your opinions of the game, the fact is Valve did say there would be an Episode 3. And that the episodes would only be 6 months apart. The Orange Box with Ep. 2 came out over 2 years ago now.